· A new wind is blowing
· They know that you also want freedom
· Millions of free men and women have joined together and are sending you this message of friendship over the winds of freedom.
· We are in touch with you daily by radio.
· There is no dungeon deep enough to hide the truth, no wall high enough to keep out the message of freedom.
· Tyranny cannot control the winds, and cannot enslave your hearts. Freedom will rise again.
The schedule and frequencies of Radio Free Europe's broadcasts to Czechoslovakia were on the reverse side of the leaflets. Organizational signatures on the reverse side included the Crusade for Freedom, the International Federation of Free Journalists, and the Confederation International des Anciens Prisonniers de Guerre (over 1,200.000 war veterans and prisoners of war from Belgium, France, Holland, and Italy).
On August 12, 1951, at 6:30 p.m., a convoy of eleven trucks, two buses, six automobiles, a radio truck, and a few taxis began the trip from Radio Free Europe headquarters in Munich to the Iron Curtain, about 170 miles northeast of Munich. One participant said, "The convoy stretches out over a half-mile. It looks like an army division on the move." The convoy arrived at a field near Tirschenreuth, West Germany, at approximately 1 a.m, on August 13 and set up the base of operations just 3 miles from the Czechoslovak border: The balloon crews began to work almost immediately in five trucks:
The plastic balloon crews work inside the truck--five men to a truck. Two men prepare the ‘pillows' and insert the message sheets; one man operates the hydrogen tanks; another nozzles in the gas; the last man 'weighs' each balloon by attaching a small metal ring with scotch tape.
When the right amount of gas has been inserted, the balloon hangs almost stationary in the air. Finally, the opening at the corner of the balloon is heat-sealed with an electric gadget like a curling iron. The actual launching consists of tearing off the iron ring and shoving the balloon out the back end of the truck. The 'pillows' take off gracefully and slowly, their silver sides catching the moonlight.The first balloons, about 4 feet in diameter, with the Czech word “Svoboda”(Freedom) written on the side in red letters, were launched at the rate of one per minute. On August 14, 1951, the General Mills public relations department posted the following information on bulletin boards at the corporate headquarters in
Minneapolis:
Tens of thousands of General Mills-made freedom balloons are now landing in Czechoslovakia...carrying messages of hope to people behind the Iron Curtain. Called pillow balloons because of their 54" square size, they were developed at company Research laboratories in 1949. The balloons are made of polyethylene, a substance commonly used in food saver bags
The second type of balloon was made of rubber and called "Gummies" (the German word for rubber) by the balloon crews. The "Gummies" were round, colored either red or black, and took off faster and soon raced ahead of the "pillow balloons." Three prominent American personalities eagerly participated in the balloon launchings:· Famed American newspaper syndicated columnist Drew Pearson, a major proponent of the balloon launching program in his widely-read US newspaper column: "The Washington Merry-Go-Round;"
· C.D. Jackson, President of Free Europe Committee and former Time magazine vice president;
· Republican Party leader Harold Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, was the National Chairman of the 1951 Crusade for Freedom campaign.
The lofting of balloons continued until approximately 6:30 a.m., when breakfast was served. The crews returned to work at 7 a.m. and continued launching until noon. By then, over 3,000 balloons carrying 4,000,000 leaflets were launched. It was 7 p.m. before the convoy returned to Munich, so the crews and guests could rest and sleep.
According to Time magazine, the three launched the balloons "looking like three Statues of Liberty, held high above their heads big rubber balloons. At the signal they solemnly let go."
The photo shows Stassen talking to reporters with Drew Pearson in the background, wearing a hat, and standing underneath a "Gummi" balloon with leaflets. After the launch, Harold Stassen said, "We tore a big hole in the Iron Curtain. If the free world can send enough messages by radio and balloon, Soviet Russia will have to give up its present world policy, and the prospects for avoiding World War III will be considerably brighter." C.D. Jackson reportedly said, 'Tonight we caught the Kremlin with its Iron Curtain down."
From October 1951 to November 1956, the skies of Central Europe were filled with more than 500,000 balloons carrying over 300,000,000 leaflets, posters, books, and other printed matter that were sent from West Germany over the Iron Curtain to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.
